We're so done with the Veterinarian...

This is Gibbs.



For those of you that may not know him well, Gibbs is the sort of dog that looks like he's got the wisdom of the ages in his soul - up until anything walks past our window, then he's a fiercely dedicated watchdog, no doubt shouting all manner of obscenities at that potential assassin. With Mav he's an absolute pushover who lets the toddler crawl all over him, step on him, and pull his ears and lips without a single sound or movement of protest. He's incredibly sweet, loving, and generally well-behaved.

He's also been the victim of an onslaught of unfortunate situations since we moved down here to Phoenix.

First, last Friday night Danny noticed Gibbs' lip was a little swollen. When he took a closer look, he saw light through the lip. Our dog had a hole you could pass a pen through in his big, floppy lip! I was appalled. I had been home almost all day with him and hadn't heard a peep or seen a thing. We took him to a new vet recommended by friends and he basically told us there's no way to know what happened and really no way to fix it except with time and patience. If they sewed it up, Sparrow would just rip the stitches out and probably cause more damage. So we cleaned it out a few times (with weak tea, which I'd never heard of using before) and he went on antibiotics for a few weeks while it closed up.

We still suspect this one had something to do with it:



Doesn't she look suspicious?

The second ordeal started on Saturday with a little cough that escalated to a horrible, gut-wrenching hack by Sunday night and by Monday he couldn't eat. The vet told us there was the possibility of Valley Fever. He told us this with the obvious expectation that we would be thoroughly alarmed, but since we aren't from around here and it's a local ailment, we were clueless. I guess it's like a really bad cold that humans and dogs can contract from spores. If left unchecked, the sickness can be pretty dangerous. But he wasn't 100% sure, so Gibbs is just back on some antibiotics and a cough suppressant for now.

Poor Gibbs.